Career

Samuel Woodson was the son of the Congressman from Kentucky, Samuel H. Woodson ( 1777-1827 ).
He attended the common schools and then the Centre College in Danville.
After a subsequent law degree from Transylvania University in Lexington and his 1838 was admitted to the bar he began in 1840 to work in Independence in this profession.
At the same time he proposed as a member of the short-lived American Party launched a political career.
In 1853 and 1854 he sat as an MP in the House of Representatives from Missouri.
In 1855 he was a delegate at a meeting to revise the State Constitution.

In the congressional elections of 1856 Woodson was in the fifth electoral district of Missouri in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC
chosen, where he became the successor of Thomas Peter Akers on March 4, 1857.
After a re-election he was able to complete in Congress until March 3, 1861 two legislative sessions.
These were shaped by the events in the immediate run-up to the Civil War.

In 1860, Woodson opted not to run again.
After his retirement from the U.S. House of Representatives, he practiced as a lawyer again in Independence.
Politically, he moved over to the Democratic Party.
Since 1875 he was a judge in the 24th Judicial District of Missouri.
This office he held until his death on June 23, 1881 in his hometown of Independence.